Can I Forge INCONEL? 

Tim: “Today we are going to be working with a really hard material” Also Tim: “WHAT?! It’s so hard!”

You need constant coolant flow when milling inconel at lower rpm with very specific inserts made for it, or you can get ceramic inserts which you _have_ to run at very high speeds, the chips come off glowing red. I've machined inconel parts weighing several tons (using a mill with 42 feet of X-axis travel, 13 feet on Y and seven feet on Z, not your average mill lol, the thing could turn a 12 inch face mill at a half inch depth of cut in steel), going through four grand worth of inserts in a day was normal operating costs which were actually very optimized. The stuff is universally hated by machinists, every time one of us knew an inconel part was coming down the line the bitchfest began, the stuff is awful. Also, you need carbide drills if you want to poke any kind of accurate or deep hole in inconel, HSS or M2 cobalt is just way too soft and not rigid enough, that's the awful chattering you're seeing/hearing. Straight flute gun drills with pass through coolant work the best. And when using any endmills, keep the flute length as short as physically possible and chucked up as close to the flute ends as possible, every micron of deflection you can prevent means a longer tool life. And use high helix endmills, they're absolutely necessary.

I forge bell helicopter impellers from inconel. We also use inconel as the racks in our furnaces for titanium and our inconel. Furnaces stay at 1720f year round and the inconel racks only get replaced as they get bent. Pretty crazy. Although the furnaces are pumped full of nitrogen to avoid oxidation of parts and racks. We forge around 2000f for inconel parts with a 12000 ton Erie mechanical press .

nobody: "I'm going to forge inconel." inconel: - laughs in metallurgy of non-earthly dimensions -

Smooth,,,,, lol.

Inconel doesn't get upset easily, but it falls apart at a moments notice

I've worked in aerospace engineering for years, and I've seen machinists reduced to tears because this material is just a contrary beast. If you want to poke holes in Inconel, you'd better go to the sinker EDM machine, because trying to dill a hole in will just piss it off.

My first expericence with inconel was many years ago and the company chemical division was trying to develop a new process to refine copper ore. That division asked us to expose the ore to high temperatures to bring about a chemical change. The material was placed into what looked like large baking pans. The pans were made of sheet inconel probably .050 thick. Once the pans, containing the ore were placed in a forge and brought up to several thousand degrees, the inconel pans were nearly white hot and you could see the ore material through the side of the pan. After a number of heating and cooling cycles like this the pans were warped, but there were no failures of the metal.

Tim: This is the hardest material I ever forged. Me: Make a hammer out of it, just for the sake of it xD

Inconel is a trademark that covers a big family of different alloys. It helps to be precise. There's a huge difference between an annealed inconel 625 and a precipitation hardened inconel 718. I'm guessing you had something like 718 which is why it behaved the way it did. If you can get it up to about 1000-1100C and hold it for a few hours, that should dissolve the precipitates so it softens to the point where you can work it.

I was inspecting a vessel made of Inconel and the legs were just stainless I think SA-316 and the customer called and wanted the the 16ft legs to be Inconel also. Response went "what? are you sure? You know how.... yea we can do that." Then looks at me "well more money for us!" I was both shocked and laughing because that is not what Inconel is for.

I worked in aerospace and we used inconel 718 all the time... It took a 120 ton forming press to mold that stuff into shape and our material was only 1/4" thick. We could not go from bar stock to final part, there was about 5 forming steps with different dies in the press. In between each step we had to send all the parts out for a heat treat. We manufactured the different compressor stages for the GE 90 Turbofan engine, the one used on the Boeing 777... So yeah it is a total pain in the ass LOL

This alloy was the foundation for molten salt Nuclear reactor. If you can forge it maybe you can make a fission reactor and solve all our energy problems.

INCONEL machining is often done with extreme levels of cooling and lubrication, i notice.

Inconel: You're flying on it. A lot of the jet engine rotating components are made with it. It's hard as hell. Part of the Unobtanium metal alloys group.

I would have felt bad but I would have laughed so hard if when you set it back 8n the press if it fell back into the hole.

I love that Martin is the "Teller" of this duo and Tim is the "Penn".

It's like stainless steel on steroids! No scale or flaking at any of the temps shown. Amazing! Thanks, Tim. ⭐🙂👍👍

Drill it with SuttonTools R40 Inox drill bits low speed and plenty of lube. Have used them many time to stop crack propagation in gas turbine exhaust inner shells. Love the vid's keep them coming.

It is perfect for making tongs, mandrels and other tools that contact very hot metal very often

Where I work, we do mostly inconel and titanium parts. The learning curve for inconel can get expensive. I suggest doing a good amount of research before you mess with it in any major way to save yourself some cash and time. Edit: Also, as someone said before, coolant is absolutely required if you are trying to cut it with HSS, extremely recommended if you're cutting with carbide. Both of those cutter types will fail much more quickly without coolant when cutting inconel. Also, I dunno why you'd want to use inconel unless you're making a combustion chamber or certain other parts for a rocket or high performance jet engine. It's primary application is environments with extreme heat. It's not harder than the hardest types of steel, but it doesn't get softer with heat like steel until you get it VERY hot. Some types of inconel are actually harder at higher temps than they are at room temperature.

"Two heat treatments are generally utilized for INCONEL alloy 718: •Solution anneal at 1700-1850°F followed by rapid cooling, usually in water, plus precipitation hardening at 1325°F for 8 hours, furnace cool to 1150°F, hold at 1150°F for a total aging time of 18 hours, followed by air cooling."

I used to machine it years ago when I had a shop and made small Aerospace parts. It machines similiar to Titanium-Stainless alloys. Nice orange colour while it was in the forge! That power hammer is wonderful.

Congrats your a material scientist now you've just discovered that the molecules of inconel are ridged in extreme temp's

Tim you must try to get your hands on some *Rene41* I'd like to see you try that lol its much harder than Inconel, just don't ruin your Titanium hammer on it!

I had to machine the combustion housing for a jet engine a long while back... The worst machining job ever. It work hardens extraordinarily quick, ate through thousands in inserts.

I wonder if the folk over at the inconel foundry are having a chuckle

Looses piece of Inconel in hole under flypress. Proceeds to pull it out and throw it right beside the same hole

2:47 that's suuuuuper weird to see absolutely no sparks coming off an angle grinder

Tim Make an Inconel hammer, punch, and chisel set!!!

Wander what kind of knife blade it would make.

I'm curious how well this would hold a sharp edge as a blade.

I'd love to have a inconel knife! 🔪. Just to say I have one! With a titanium handle! The chunk at the end would make a nice one, about 5-6" blade, with 4 75"-5.5 " handle, I have big hands! Maybe get that bar down to 1/8" thick, and shape and sharpen it! Throw a couple chiunks of titanium for the handle, maybe 12gauge thick,. With a nickel spacer, and pins to attach! I'd have to make it myself, I couldn't afford to have it made!

The North American X-15 rocket plane had skin made from inconel (actually, Inconel X), as the skin reached over 1200C at speeds approaching (and exceeding on one flight) Mach 6.

I worked 625 inconel in aerospace apps. One thing you find out is you can't hand drill with cobalt bits and fast drills. Once it snags...you have a shattered bit. We used hss bits and replaced them often. If you ran a bit until it dulled...it would work harden the hole instantly. So any heat buildup is bad news. You use a lot of bit lube (boelube) and slow rpm. that is probably what happened to your small end mill and drills.

Old man: Power hammers make less of a blacksmith. Me: yo I bet you can’t even handforge this mild steel bro…. 😅

Gotta use carbide only on inconel. And only an abrasive wheel saw to cut it. Been machining it for 20 years. We found that having the drills and taps TiN coated makes a HUGE difference.

I think it would be cool if you could make a kitchen knife out of this material. Would be ridiculously hard but it would prove your skill with forging if you managed it and you could sell it for loads of money as a "Rare Inconel Kitchen Knife"

What's the point of a titanium forging hammer? Seems like you lose a lot of power with the lighter hammer. Total noob, just curious.

I worked in a machine shop in Houston back in the ‘80’s. We used a lot of inconel for the oil industry. I don’t know which particular alloy(s), but I remember picking up a bar about 1’ long and 3” diameter and it was insanely heavy.

It's also used in extreme chemical environments where even the most corrosion resistant steels wouldn't last five minutes. It has great resistance to hydrogen sulfide for example, so it's very popular in the oil and gas industry in places with sour gas. It can be readily machined using the right tooling. It can certainly be forged too. You need to get your speeds and feed rates right too.

I bet this stuff would be fantastic for a dross skimmer with molten metal. or as a set of crucible tongs. If its this heat resistant it should be usable in those applications for a very very long time.

Um... it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. It's considered an "in-between" between high-alloy steels and sintered tungsten carbides. Your video sorta reminded me of the epic "let's forge this tungsten carbide end mill"... needless to say that one didn't go too well either.

Inconel is a nickel alloy. To cut it on a band saw you need to set your speed, feeds and drop to a minimum. Cut slow, feed high and drop slow. The settings we use is 19rpm speed, 8 feed and 0.5 drop. It takes a long time to cut so just be patient and it will cut. Oh and you need constant stream of coolent. If you try to cut this stuff without coolent you will just burn out your blades.

If glowing rocket engine bells can keep their form with that violence going on, I don't think a hammer is going to dent it easily.

“I thought that was gonna be easy peasy….” I love the spirit y’all have on here!

Does anyone knows why it blew up after heating it to higher temperature?

Which alloy? Inconel is a trade name for a family of nickel alloys with very different properties. You need to know which Inconel alloy to know how to work it.

Welding it with tig is really watery and really trashy stuff floating all over the surface of the puddle

Recurring thought during video (and a few of his other vids), this guy is such the Batman super-villain origin story. ... In a race against time to forge a barrel that can withstand the enormous pressures and heat of his gun that fired 100,000 rounds per minute for the NSA, Dr. TD bypassed many of the uniiversal safety protocols he himself instituted. Combining metals that gave off horribly toxic oxide gases, slowly his skin, lungs and circulatory system began to develop a coating which shielded him from all types of radiation but the coating also made it difficult to absorb oxygen into his brain. Barely able to think in his hypoxic state, Dr. TD lost all sense of right and wrong, soon he found it necessary to replace the degenerate tissues with healthy parts he found in his victims ....

Love these designer metal episodes. Have you tried forging different grades of titanium into billets for knife scales? Flame anodizing might be awesome. ✌

Ok, I've never heard of this material, is there a reason he didn't use any oil or anything when trying to drill and cut it? Wouldn't that have helped prevent the work hardening?

Welding it is always a trip haha if you don't follow the right process and preheat (usually) prepare for the cracks haha

Interesting stuff. It didn't even look like it had any scale on it after it was heated. Maybe you would have to pretty much drown it in coolant to prevent it from getting hardened from the temp of the drill bit.

So Tim what you're telling me is that I can't machine inconel pistons for my Ford Bronco? :( Bummer, but thank you for yet again another awesome video. You convinced me to build my own forge btw :)

wow, make a round hole punch with this material. It's perfect, you don't have to cool it off to re-punch the metal.

What type of power hammer do you have fella ???

Looks like it makes some good drifts or Hardy hole tools like one hell of a hot cut off

Try liquid nitrogen instead on flood coolant to mill and drill

* crowd chanting * inconel hammer inconel hammer

If you manage to make a hammer out of annealed inconel you just made the last hammer you need .

Stop BSing that's a ding in your hammer get over it.

Inconel would be great to use for forging tools. Imagine a punch or cutting tool for the anvil made out of it. You would never have to replace it.

Still surprises me how quiet Martin is he seems to be full of knowledge especially when it comes to some of the leather work and machine work would be good great to see you pair speak more well not you Tim as you waffle on a lot lmao as for that metal it's mad

I’ve sanded the flux off incolnel welding rod and twisted them up with cable Damascus, works great.

Do you think heating it to forging temperature will affect the properties of the inconel? Does it just get harder and more brittle as it heats but then then ductility returns as it cools?

Steve from GreenBeetle on RU-vid tried to forge inconel, ended up using stock removal to finish a knife project out of it... crazy stuff...

If you were able to work it in an inert atmosphere, it wouldn't have exploded. Hydrogen embrittlement greatly deteriorates the mechanical properties . Machning / drilling, your chip per tooth has to be below the work hardened layer that forms from the previous cut per tooth.

A set of the worlds most durable hot chisels would be interesting additions to your collection of exotic metal blacksmithing tools.

Why do you refuse to use coolant? everytime you are deep enough the metal hardens because of the heat an then your bit cant do anything

Every time the power hammer came down on it, it hurt my heart.

Maybe dont use a titanium hammer.

This is so Kanada. But Whatever

Can you forge inconel titanium damascus?! 🤪👍👍

you should make a hammer out of it

Cried with laughter the first time you hit that thing. How does it do on the lathe?

Seems like a great material for engine blocks, or at least the cylinder liners. Probably cost prohibited.

from experience ive cut 1" od inconel with low speed band saw with essentially a hacksaw blade. 1.5 hours

We install splash plate inside of our plastic injection molds, on the opposite side of where the nozzle mates to the back of the mold. When the nozzle squirts plastic into the cavity, it hits that plate, and over a few 1000's cycles... the plate still shows wear... tough stuff..

I don't know anything about this stuff, but when cutting/machining materials that are wear resistant/tough, you often have to (paradoxically it seems) have a fast cutting speed (not so much the cutter itself) to prevent the material from wear hardening. If the material gets a chance to harden while cutting, you're screwed.

I admit, I knew what was going to happen here... I just really wanted to see someone figure it out for the first time, lol. Inconel is a monster material!

A INCONEL ANVIL QOULD BE COOL

This stuff could probably work well for drifts into hot metal, maybe for axe forging

Can it be forged? Yes. Should you forge it? No, probably not. Can it be machined? Yes, sort of. Should you machine it? No, probably not. Can it be drilled? No, not really. Should you drill it? No probably not.

Inconel can be machined. Cutting slow is the best way to not burn up your tooling. You probably could have spared your bandsaw blade if you slowed it way down and used coolant. The reason you don't see sparks when grinding/sanding is because the material just doesn't ignite; grinding sparks are the result of ferrous metals catching fire when ground.

Find a lump of tin, and stamp 99.9999% Inconel on it. Da-Daahh Forged Inconel! EDIT: After watching the video, I think I'll go with "Engrave" "Carefully" rather than "Stamp". ""It just says "No". "No, no, no, no, no"..

This may be skipping ahead, but what kind of Inconel? Inconel 718, Inconel 625, Inconel 600? Also, Inconel is not stainless steel, it is a nickel superalloy.

i saw you in the buckin' video. Nice video! dude what a metal... 2:56 - well this is a real very funny moment! 4:08 - what the duck... 4:43 - maybe because >50% nickel? another strange material: watch?v=CNsp8BKB2kI

You should see what happens when you try and shape/mill cooled galium!

Sorry....just thought of something...what if you try heating it then letting it cool before machining or drilling? Similar to copper. Copper work hardens eh? But what do I know?? Lol. But seriously, try it.

reminds me of the time I tried to forge some Monel tubing. Yeah, those alloys don't want to move. Lesson learned.

I work with Inconel and yeah its a pain in the ass to work with. Drilling with a pneumatic tool is an art form, it requires an unforgiving balance of drill speed, pressure, and patience. LOTS OF PATIENCE. Or yeah the metal hardness means you just scrapped your piece.

Could that stuff be made into a decent hammer? And would you even need to harden it? 🤔 I know your titanium hammer is awesome but could you make a hammer with some Inconel please? It would have to be something really simple (less work needed) so maybe a rounding/flat hammer..... not actually sure what those ones are called. 👍👍👍 ..... oh, and that inconel explosion was really cool to watch...... from the safety of my living room!!! It's one of those moment when "wow!" Is the only thing to say..... and checking that everyone is OK 😳👍👍👍

Inconel has a high Nickel Content. Low RPM, Light cuts. I cut Inconel 600-900 pretty much daily. In a lathe there are special inserts that are designed to cut inconel. Inconel 718 is a Heat Resistant Super Alloy. Its a tough material to cut. But very rewarding.

You want low speed and high feed rates for cutting the stuff as it tends to work harden very easily. The reason your piece blew up is you exceeded the grain transition temperature where the metal formed a brittle phase between its mative HCP to a FCC crystal structure.

Hey Timothy...great video...have you ever tried to forge R1 monel? Also could you make it into a Damascus dagger...🤘😆

You are wildly under-equipped. GM began making exhaust valve flanges for diesel engines back in the late 1950s. You can band-saw it but you have to have the right blade material. You don't heat it in a old-school forge. You heat it in an electric induction heater. Get a big enough press and you can form a cylindrical slug in three whacks of a multi-cavity die. We forged hundreds per hour and then friction welded them to a SAE 1040 steel stem. This was the first product I ever saw that used a robot for material handling - back in 1969.

If it's work hardening while cutting you can probably increase the SFM and adjust feeds accordingly, you will also need running coolant to reduce the speed it's work hardening at. Have a look at speeds and feed charts for 316 stainless, then have a look on practical machinist and notice the difference in the advice. I only have experience with 316, but expect them to work very similarly.

Hey Tim I am new here..... know nothing about blacksmithing other than I think it's cool! I was rolling.... literally LOL when you hit that with the hammer. Funny thing was that you looked at the hammer! Hilarious

A couple of years ago I tried to make a hammer out of a piece of camshaft? I think? From a honda accord. Pretty sure it was the cam shaft I used. Anywho... Behaved the EXACT same way. When i exploded the piece, it caught my old shop on fire in like 7 different places. Stack of shop rags on fire. Cardboard boxes on fire everywhere.... Only time i have ever used a fire extinguisher actually. So maybe similar material.... It also took about 3 cutoff wheels to cut, so I assumed it would make a beast of a hammrr